Part 22 (1/2)

”This here is some interesting to me, son,” remarked the big sheriff, as Allan paused to get his breath, for he was talking so fast and so eagerly that he had almost exhausted himself. ”And so, after you learned where he was, and how he came to be thar, I reckon now you boys started to climb up and rescue the other--how?”

”That's what we did, sir,” broke in Giraffe, eagerly. ”Four of us, counting the guide, managed to climb up the mountain, and with a rope we carried, hooked Aleck up off that ledge the prettiest you ever saw, that's what we did,” with a defiant look toward old Artemus, who was sniffing through all this talk, just as though he refused to believe a word of it.

”And that's the way we came to have him in our camp, sir,” Allan went on to say. ”We heard his story, and believed it, too. He's got a mother, and a lot of little sisters, who look to him to carry out the work his father started. But every one who ever hears a word about that hidden mine Jerry Rawson once found, seems to be just crazy to take it away from his widow. She has hardly a single friend to trust.

Even her relatives plot to beat her out of this valuable mining property, and try all sorts of things, in hopes of getting hold of the secret. And now you know just where we stand, Mr. Sheriff. As scouts we must stay friends of Aleck. He _was_ here, just as you know; but he's gone away, and none of us know where to. Thad took him off during the night, and all he said was we might expect to see him again when he showed up. So you can't pump any information out of us, you see.”

”And even if we knew anything, we wouldn't tell,” a.s.serted Giraffe, belligerently, feeling that the honor of a scout was in question right then.

The sheriff looked from one to another of those four boyish faces.

”By George! now, I reckon it wouldn't be any use in me tryin' to scare you by threatening to jail you for aiding in the escape of a desperate criminal, would it?” he remarked, pretending to look very serious, but with that twinkle again in evidence, as Allan saw.

”You just couldn't;” declared Giraffe, while b.u.mpus began to move a little uneasily in his seat; ”in the first place, we don't know anything more'n we've told you; secondly, we haven't a.s.sisted anybody to escape, because we're right here, johnny-on-the-spot, and it's our scoutmaster who's gone; and then, last of all, there ain't any desperate criminal at all; only a poor, persecuted boy, with the grit that you just want your own chap to show, Mr. Sheriff,--ready to fight everybody, for the sake of his mother and sisters.”

Sheriff Bob wagged his head slowly, as though mentally digesting what the other had just said.

”H'm! that remains to be seen, boy,” he remarked; although Giraffe believed he did not feel one-half as ferocious as he chose to look just then. ”Duty is duty, no matter how unpleasant it may seem, sometimes.”

”I'm glad to hear you take that sensible view of the matter, Mr.

Sheriff,” said the old Denver lawyer, in his oily tones. ”You mustn't believe one-tenth of what boys say. They would as soon prevaricate as eat their breakfast; that is, some of the breed would, though doubtless your son is an exception to the rule. These scouts, as they choose to call themselves, have fixed up a story to suit themselves, and they hope to enlist your sympathy; but I know that a stern sense of duty will compel you to close your ears to anything they may say. I demand that you exercise every effort possible, looking to the immediate arrest of my rascally nephew, Alexander Rawson, whom I accuse of stealing valuable papers from my pocketbook while I was a guest under his mother's roof, and then disappearing.”

”Oh! very well, sir, don't excite yourself about my movements,”

remarked Sheriff Bob, a.s.suming a pompous air, though Allan thought he winked slily in his direction while speaking. ”You will find no cause to complain to my superiors concerning any shortcomings on my part.

And up to now, you must admit I have been unflagging in my endeavor to locate the fugitive from justice. Make your mind easy, Mr. Rawson, I see my duty clear in the premises, and can be depended on to do it.”

Watching his chance a little later Allan followed the sheriff, when the latter went to get a drink of water near by. Artemus looked as though he wanted to keep them from having any communications out of his range of hearing; but he sank back in his seat again, plainly afraid of invoking the anger of the big sheriff, who, he already felt, did not feel any too warmly toward him and his cause.

And as they sat down by the little stream to dip up some of the clear water with the tin cup Sheriff Bob had made sure to fetch along, Allan made it a point to tell the other all that Aleck had said about the motives of his father's lawyer brother, and how for a long time he had bothered the widow, trying to find out if she knew anything about the hidden mine; which until lately of course she had not.

Allan knew how to talk. Moreover, he had an interested listener in the officer, and that counted for a great deal. Besides, he felt deeply for the persecuted boy, and his heart was filled with a desire to a.s.sist him secure the legacy left by his father, than whom no living soul had ever gazed upon the hidden mine.

Sheriff Bob listened to all that the boy said. Several times he scratched his head reflectively, and made a grimace, as though conflicting forces had begun to engage him in an inward war.

And when finally Allan declared that he now knew all, the officer drew a long breath, and remarked, quietly:

”I seem to smell a pretty good-sized rat about this game Mr. Artemus is putting up; but as I said, the warrant he swore out is in my hands for serving, and I just reckon I'll have to do my sworn duty and arrest this same Aleck----that is, if so be he shows up while we're around here.”

Allan looked him squarely in the eye; and he was sure one of the lids above the blue orbs of the official dropped a little in a suggestive way.

He too drew a long breath, and with a smile on his boyish face, said as he arose:

”Thank you, Mr. Sheriff, thank you very much!”

CHAPTER XXII.

THE GUARDIAN OF THE SILVER LODE.

As has been mentioned before, Thad had a plan in view when he left the camp in company with Aleck, somewhere about midnight. Though for certain reasons which he considered good, he had not seen fit to take a single one of his comrades into his confidence, the scoutmaster believed that the only way for Aleck to win his own game was to find the long-lost mine, and take possession of the same in the name of his father, who had been the original discoverer of the lode.